Pete Um at the Portland Arms in Cambridge, was a complete bonus. As readers of the website will know I took a trip last month to Cambridge to see Gary War, over from the USA for a tour. It was a wet and cold night, hey that is the current theme I guess.

After having a chat with the guys from Gary War, I headed back to the car for a cigarette, such is the state of the UK and racked up the volume to something by the Pistols, yes I know there should be some sex in front of it, but it all seems so pretentious hey Johnny – how is the TV advertising doing after some ridiculous appearance on ‘I am desperate for a break vote for me’. To give the man credit at least Mr. Lydon never pretended he was nothing other than a money grubber, which I guess is why the court case made history at the time. That kind of bull was the reason I left my band, they wanted to chase the dollar, I wanted to do what I wanted to do, perhaps Sid was a little more real, I digress, but as you will know, I am only interested in bands doing what they believe in.

We head back to Gary War, by the time I returned from my sojourn, they had all disappeared, so I headed in to the small back-room at The Portland Arms and facing me was a guy in the lotus position mumbling in to a mike. I thought to myself, how long before he gets off. Then he pressed his MP3 player, which was hooked to who knows what as I followed a series of connectors and I was just settling down to his vocal and it was all over.

Pete Um is perhaps one of the most understated on the site thus far. He delivers as though he is a bumbling incapable idiot and would in fact make a fantastic comedian with a monotone delivery many spend years getting wrong, never mind a superb experimental musician. The songs are introduced by a significant preamble, which for little apparent reason had the audience, myself included, laughing and we were led in to tracks which never lasted more than a minute and a half.

From his sedentary, leather pilot helmet clad and goggles visage, Pete Um delivered a half hour set, comprising songs of ever shorter duration, which must have taken hours of production. Pete is a consummate experimentalist, who doesn’t try too hard, yet has a superb appreciation of what he is delivering. His stage craft is supreme and his 50 second tracks reveal so much more than a double LP of asinine pop.

I was enthralled – a minimalist set – lets be fair, sitting in a lotus position, at the edge of a tiny stage is perhaps as minimalist as it may get, delivered humour, far reaching experimentation, which to the audience came from a basic MP3 player and some soul searching lyric, which was a tour de force.

Pete Um may not get the recognition he deserves in the UK, but this beats hands down most output from the global experimental scene.

Oh Pete the answer to Syd Barret.. cremated in Cambridge and there is a bench in commemoration.

Forever keeping heads on their toes, Werk Records dash this curveball from the brilliant Nochexxx and marmite MC extraordinaire, Sensational, into our path. We really don’t know what the f*ck is going on with ‘Smashing Your System’, it’s like a folder full of Philip Jeck, Throbbing Gristle and Anti Pop Consortium has been corrupted with live protein enzymes, resulting in one confounding bit of beaten oddness. ‘Sinbliss’ is a little easier to grasp, if a mesh of Belgian New Beat with swampy Dub subs and the most disjointed MC in the business is nothing out of the ordinary to you. For us it’s one of the best WTF moments we’ve had in months. Fans of V/Vm and High Priest, it’s all yours!

Someone reviewed me playing with the Fiery Furnaces in Brighton.
Middle act Pete Um is somewhat of a curiosity, “we met him in Cambridge and asked him along to play with us here. He’s pretty nuts, huh?”, insists Fiery Furnaces bass player Jason Loewenstein when I corner him later on. Treading an incredibly thin line between clever and amusing, and obnoxious and annoying, Um slurs his way through a flurry of breathlessly short tales of woe, accompanied by his trusty iPod. The lyrics contain the odd witty rhyme, or chortle-inducing image, but for the most part the crowd is left shaking their head, at what essentially appears to everyone to be a rambling madman in a wooly hat. Definitely more “Um” than “Ah!”.

More bird business. The other day Syd and I were walking up Gwydir Street and a woman with pursed lips cycling past issued a warning: “Watch out, there’s a crow up ahead. It’s a bit wild.” We continued in some trepidation, but were not attacked by the bird. I seem to recall that the artist woman on who lived on Gwydir Street had made pets of crows at some point, and I wondered if this had anything to do with it. Maybe it was a bit tame rather than a bit wild, or bore a grudge against people in general, and artists in particular.

The other night I had a bird dream. I was in a large wooden open-plan room or building like a barn, possibly on stilts, and I was in the company of a small bird that was due to lay an egg. For some reason there was no question in my mind that it was my responsibility to enable this to take place. The bird hovered at my shoulder or elbow at all times as I searched with increasing urgency for some sort of container to fashion a nest out of, and also a suitable location to put it in. Every plan I came up with revealed itself as inadequate in some way, and the bird was becoming frantic. The situation came to a head as I desperately placed a cardboard box in the centre of the room at the same time as some persons unknown entered by the door, and also as my real-life housemate appeared from the other direction and said something like “Ooh, is it a birdie?!” in an exaggeratedly animated manner. At this point the bird began to hover like a hummingbird near my housemate’s head as though in threat of self-defence, and I was moved to grab him by the lapels and raise the possibility of immediate violence upon his person if he continued to escalate the sense of tension in the situation. Then the bird flew to the ground and produced a small reddish egg on the bare floorboards, which I fell upon but saw to my dismay was broken. Another smaller egg was discovered elsewhere, also broken, and at this point I began to sob in anguish with my clasped hands raised towards the ceiling.